Where's Andrew

CORN ISLANDS, NICARAGUA - MAY 20 - 30



Little Corn Island

 Hannah and I catch a 9:00AM shuttle from our hostel in Granada to the airport in Managua. We get there at 10:00AM and our flight is not scheduled to leave until 2:00PM but it is the only shuttle that goes direct to the airport each day. At check in, I find out my large pack, duffel bag and day pack weigh a total of 85 lbs, I am only allowed 50lbs so I get charged another 520Cordobas ($21US). Around 12:30PM, Seth shows up and will be on our flight which is great. Just before our scheduled departure time, we find out that our flight will be delayed for 1.5 hours and that the plane is full and overweight. We see a cart outside with some luggage that will not be going on the flight including my pack. Great, all my beach wear is in the pack and my shaving kit. An hour later, there are 3 small planes waiting outside, each can take around 15 passengers. We find out that 2 planes are going to Big Corn and the other is going to Bluefield which is on the Caribbean coast near the Corn Islands. We notice that all the luggage including my pack has been loaded but most of it is on the plane going to Bluefield. We finally find an airline staff person and they explain that the Bluefield plane will drop of the passengers then fly the luggage over to Big Corn but they seem very confused and everyone heading for Big Corn is wondering where their luggage is going to end up. The plane Hannah and I are on is last to leave and gets delayed for an extra hour after the other planes leave because of thunder storms but we finally take off.



Seth Exploring Little Corn

 The weather is pretty socked in but it finally starts to clear as we fly over Bluefield. When we touch down Seth is waiting for us, I'm not sure if he was actually planning to wait for us but his pack was on our plane. He tells us that the water taxi is waiting for us so we jump in a taxi and head to the dock just in time to see the boat leave without us. So we stay the night in Brig Bay and will catch the 9:30AM water taxi to Little Corn. We are not that impressed with Big Corn, the houses are very run down and Brig Bay is laid out in a very random way with large gaps in the town for no apparent reason. There is lots of fish processing plants, large docks and many fish boats along the harbour. Brig Bay is the heart of the lobster fisheries which is the main industry in the Corn Islands. About 5 years ago, the government finally reduced the lobster season to 8 months. It is now closed during the lobster mating season from March to the end of June. Crime in Big Corn has dramatically increased during the 4 month off season, especially as you get into the 3rd and 4th month of no fishing and no pay cheques. We get some cheap rooms ($10US) in a hotel near the water taxi wharf and grab some dinner but do not see much of Big Corn.



The Harbour at Little Corn

 It takes about and hour to get to Little Corn the next morning. People have described Little Corn to me as the closest thing you find to a deserted island without it actually being a deserted island. There is between 800 and 1000 people that live on Little Corn, 20 years ago there was less than 100. About 95% of them live on the south side facing Big Corn. There are no cars, motor bikes, scooters, taxis or golf carts on the island and no airport or helicopter pads. Power is generated via a diesel generator that is supposed to run daily from 12:00 noon to 6:00AM but is often an hour or 2 late in starting and an hour or 2 early turning off.



Cement Pathways at Little Corn

 The town has a narrow cement sidewalk the stretches for a couple of kms and the sidewalk splits in 2 at its west end. Little Corn stretches about 4 kms long east to west and is about 1 km wide. Other than the cement sidewalk along the south coast, the rest of the island is accessible via dirt paths. There are a handful of hotels and restaurants that these trails lead to. Most are nice little rustic cabanas right on the beach. There are beautiful beaches spaced around the island with crystal clear water.



Secluded Beach by Casa Iguana

 Most of the beaches are great for swimming and snorkelling as there is an outer reef 100 metres offshore keeping the size of the waves at shore to next to nothing. There are 2 dives shops in town and 1 on the far side of the island with dives at $35US. The pace of life is slow even by Caribbean standards and all the locals are happy with a smile as they greet you in passing. Supply boats come every Saturday so stores, restaurants and bars start running out of things by Thursday. Crime is almost non existent as all locals know what everyone else is doing. The main industry is tourism with lobster fishing being a close second. It is probably the most laid back beautiful place I've ever been. And out of anywhere I have been so far, I would recommend you visit Little Corn soon because I can't imagine it will stay the way it is for long.



My Favourite Beach on Little Corn

 Already change is happening, an exclusive 30 cabana hotel with private dock, private dive shop, private restaurant, pool and bars is being built on the most remote end of the island and should be complete in about 2 years. This hotel will be a $450US per night all inclusive resort and will have over double the capacity of any other hotel on the island. It will have its own power generator for now but they want the island generator increased in size and to run 24/7 and they want a paved path to town and permission to use golf carts. We stayed 7 nights at the 3 Brothers Hotel. Seth and I split a 2 bedroom suite with kitchen and private bathroom for $20US per night ($10US each) and Hannah had her own room and private bath for $12US.



Rae and Blowing Rock

 The day after we arrived, Seth and I went on a dive with the Dolphin Dive Shop to a dive site called Ensuenos. It was a series of little canyons that often narrowed at the top to make them feel like tunnels. There was a bit of wind that day so the surf was up and visibility was not very good. We saw a Nurse Shark and some large 40 to 50lb Tarpins but very few other reef fish. I was really hoping to see a reef shark or even a Hammer Head Shark but no such luck. We all decided to book 2 dives to a dive site about 20km away that is supposed to be the best in the Corn Islands called Blowing Rock. It is near Big Corn and is a rock that sticks up out of the water. We did 2 dives here in about 60 feet of water. The visibility was better here but not as good as Utila. Once I descend, the first thing I noticed was the number of large Barracudas, there were dozens of them swimming in the current around the rock. Some were in the 20 to 30 lb range and were well over 3 feet long. Early in the dive I looked up at the rock above me and saw a silhouet of a reef shark but I could not tell how big it was or what type. There were a lot more reef fish here compared to our first dive but not the variety as I saw at Utila. This was my first experience diving with a current; you just flew along when going with the current and barely made headway when swimming against it. There was a mother and 13 year old daughter in our group and the daughter could not make any ground swimming against the current.


Seth & Hannah on the Way to the Beach

 We had 2 Master Divers with us so we split the group in 2. I wish I had gone with them because they saw a group of 4 Blacktip Sharks. We saw saw Stinrays and a Eagle Ray and on the second dive I saw a huge puffer fish. The dive master said it was the largest puffer he had ever seen and he has almost 1000 dives.



Andrew Taking In the View

 The next couple of days Hannah, Seth and I explored the island and slowly sampled each restaurant in town for either lunch or dinner or maybe both. We ended up finding a large baseball filed with a grandstand for a couple hundred spectators in the middle of the jungle about 1 km from town. We also found a 50 foot high tower next to the radio tower on the highest point of the island. The top of this tower was just above the forest canopy and made a great platform to take pictures.




Lobster Traps at My Favourite Beach

 The weather the first few days was great with some evening or early morning showers but things changed on Saturday the 26th which was the day Hannah had to leave to catch her flight out of Big Corn the next morning. Apparently, her ride to Big Corn was like a scene out of The Perfect Storm and her backpack got soaked with salt water. The power had also gone out that morning at 1:30AM and was out all day. A new transformer was coming from Big Corn and they hoped to have it working the next day. Luckily our hotel had their own backup generator so we had power and a working fan is the difference between sleeping well or not. 



Mahi Mahi

 That next day, Seth and I had booked a morning fishing trip with Willie, one of the local fish guides. We woke up to thunder and lightning storms with on and off showers so we pushed back fishing to noon. The thunder storms had passed but things were pretty grey with a strong wind at noon but we decided to go anyway since Seth was leaving the next day. We trolled around for a couple of hours with no action and got absolutely poured on for about 25 minutes. Then we anchored at an outer reef and started bottom fishing with some small anchovies. We pulled in 20 or so small Yellowtail Snappers and Grunts. These are a favourite fish in local restaurants and are served whole with head and tail. So we had dinner but not exactly the fight we were looking for.


Seth & Andrew

 The largest fish was maybe a foot long. By then it was getting pretty rough with 6 to 8 foot waves. I was hoping Seth would hold out because he sometimes gets seasick and he was starting to look pretty green. Things were looking up once we started trolling again. Willie had put on a large sardine on my line and I started getting some bites. Finally of the 3rd good strike, I do a hard set with the rod and the reel starts screaming as the fish starts running. I see a large fish jump a couple hundred feet behind the boat and the fights on. My rod is a light weight casting rod with a light weight spin casting reel. Even with the drag at close to the maximum setting, I'm just making a little progress pulling the fish in and Willie sees it and he hoots, "Mahi Mahi." After fighting it for about 25 minutes with quite a few nice runs, I finally get it close to the boat and Willie gaffs it. It is about 12-15 pounds and is bright yellow and blue with a large dorsal sail and a very blunt face. Willie then asks me if I had noticed how little line was left in the real when the fish did the fist big run, I hadn't noticed and Willed figured I had less than 50 feet of line left. Willie changes Seth's rod to the same bait as mine. He tells us when there is 1 Mahi Mahi there is usually many more. He sees some birds circling above a section of water not far from us and he heads to that spot because this often signals that there are bait fish in the area. The moment we get there wham goes my rod, I give it a big sharp pull on the rod to set the hook, and my reel starts to sing again as the fish makes a large run. Seth and I quickly switch rods so now he's fighting the fish. After a couple of minutes, part of the handle on the reel breaks off, Seth can still reel in but very slowly and not fast enough to keep up with the fish. So Willie puts on some rubber finger protection on his thumb and index finger and starts pulling the fish in by hand with Seth reeling as fast as he can. Every time the fish starts to run, Willie has to quickly let go of the line and then quickly grab it again the moment the fish stops running. After about 10 minutes, it is finally close enough to the boat to be gaffed and it looks like a twin of the first one. We noticed that the yellow colour of the fist one has mostly turned a dark blue so we make sure to get a picture of this fish well it is still bright yellow. There is a 3rd rod that Willie quickly gets setup and we fish for another 15 minutes, we get one more good strike but the fish does not get hooked. I then look up and we have completely circled the island and are now right in front of town. Four hours have gone bye since we started fishing, so we head in.

Willie asks us what we want to do with the fish. We make a deal with the restaurant that books Willies fishing trips, we give them a whole Mahi Mahi and they cook us dinner for free. We tell Willie that he can have the rest of the fish. Various locals come by and he doles out The Yellowtails and Grunts to feed about 4 or 5 families he knows and keeps the other Mahi Mahi for his family. Fishing cost $40US each and was well worth it. I noticed that the Mahi Mahi was the restaurant special for $10US that night.



Main Pier at Little Corn

 Shortly after getting back to shore, the power comes back on. This means we can do one of our favourite things after dinner. Seth and I go to the end of main pier which had a light. This light attracts small fish which in turn attracts Sting Rays and Barracudas. On some nights we counted more than a dozen rays and up to 4 barracudas.



Little Corn Harbour from the Tower

 The next day I left Little Corn with Seth on the afternoon boat. Seth was flying out the next morning and I was flying out the following day. I decided to spend the last day getting some washing done, getting a haircut and working on my blog. The weather still hadn't cleared up and this last day it rained intermittently all day but it was very warm and humid. On Little Corn, everyone speaks English or Creole and are descendants of the English or former slaves but on Big Corn things have changed. A lot of mainland Nicaraguans moved to Big Corn during the civil war in the 80s and early 90s. So now the population is predominantly Spanish speaking. The lady who cuts hair only spoke Spanish and I struggled to get her to cut my hair the way I wanted and I finally gave up and let her just cut it. She had combed my bangs back over my head and put some gel in to keep it in place. I know this works for about an hour then my bangs just come forward again. So, I was in the bathroom of my hotel cutting my bangs looking into the tiniest mirror you have ever seen using scissors that are on my pocket knife to cut with. She had cut one side of my bangs but not the other. I'm not sure it's the best haircut I ever got but it sure is cooler now that it has been cut.

I loved Little Corn and could have easily stayed longer, but the weather is telling me to keep moving south. I'm conflicted about whether I will ever go back to Little Corn. I fear it will be full of motor bikes, golf carts and tuk tuk taxis in a couple of years and if that is the case, I think I will want to keep my memories of Little Corn in tact the way they are.


Hannah & Seth at the Baseball Field

 I sure enjoyed my days with Seth and Hannah in Little Corn and Granada. Seth is flying back home to Wyoming on May 20th and has the coolest jobs of anyone I know. In winter, he's a ski slope photographer in Jackson Hole and in summer, he does wildlife safaris in Yellowstone which usually is focused on finding Grizzly Bears. He gets 2 months off in the fall and spring and tends to travel during these breaks. Hannah lives in Leeds but was on her way to Costa Rica and then Panama and flies to Peru in a couple weeks finishing her trip in Buenos Aries before flying home. She' a lawyer just starting work with a new firm this summer. They are 2 of the nicest most genuine people of met on this trip.

On the 30th, I fly back to Managua and I stay the night in Granada before heading to Ometepe and San Juan del Sur before crossing into Costa Rica. I think rainy season may be here but hopefully I can find a few good days before it gets too wet. I hope to be in Columbia by late July and expect to stay a month to 6 weeks before heading into Venezuela. I'm hoping I will here from a few of my fiends back home with some places they might want to meet me. There are some nice Caribbean Island off the north end of Venezuela that look fun. Can anyone say Aruba? Say in September or maybe October? Adios.